Maybe you don’t admit to lusting after your
neighbor’s donkey, but have you bought things you cannot afford or simply
wanted because you coveted with your heart and eyes. Have you hungered for your
neighbor’s life or wife because they look better than your own? The Torah
wisely admonishes you not to do so and to keep your eyes in your head. What’s
divinely awesome about this commandment is that no one knows what is in your
heart, only God. So you can be the perfect hypocrite and like a pig show the
outside world that you have split hooves and are kosher and good, but on the
inside, God knows exactly what you’re made of and how you digest the world
around you. On the inside He knows if you’re a pig! The rabbis teach
that the only thing we are allowed to envy in another is their knowledge of
Torah. Every other thing they have is uniquely theirs by Divine design. To
covet is your way of telling God He doesn’t know what He’s doing?
When we covet, we try to live
“their” lives instead of our own. By feigning such postures we become like
failed Queen Esthers who flout our opportunities and decide not to use
everything God gave us to fulfill our own purpose and His will, and so we with
our uniqueness, perish.
Jealousy/coveting never ends well.
In fact, the Talmud teaches, “That anyone who places his eyes on that which is
not his is not given what he desires, and that which he had is taken from
him.” The rabbis teach that upon
creation, the moon was envious of the sun and questioned why the sky needed two
great luminaries, and so God diminished the light of the moon; Cain envied
Abel’s sacrifice to God and as a result he was cursed by God; the primordial
snake which once talked and walked, envied Adam’s relationship with Eve, with
the result that God punished him and made him crawl the earth, eat dirt and
caused hatred between him and the woman; Korach, Moses’s cousin, envied Moses
and Aharon and struck up a rebellion; the earth opened and swallowed him. And
make no mistake about it, the moon, Cain, the snake and Korach each had
tremendous potential and talents and each had great destinies of their own if
they would have been busy being the best versions of themselves instead of
trying to be someone else.
Green is not a flattering color
for a complexion and jealousy is plain out unhealthy. Your envious eye
glamorizes the objects of your desire. You covet your neighbor because your
view is framed by ignorance. Know his full lot, understand his full package and
you may soon find yourself pitying your neighbor instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment